


happy little accidents [the youtube remix]

by akaiiko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, RomCom Level Twist, Veteran Shiro (Voltron), YouTuber Keith (Voltron), war imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko
Summary: Shiro spent years defusing IEDs only to become one himself.Shiro puts down the mug and pulls out his phone. It lights up. He doesn’t put in his passcode, not yet, just stares at the picture he set as his background three weeks ago in a moment of weakness.In it, Keith’s smiling. A small thing, no teeth, but there are soft crinkles around his eyes that mean its sincere. One of his arms is curled around his wolfdog, who in the moment looks more like a slobbery puppy than a high content hybrid predator. Sunshine gilds them both. Behind them is an impression of blue sky and forest.They’re a snapshot of a perfect spring day, one he wishes he’d been a part of even though he’s in no shape to be part of anyone’s life.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 298
Collections: Sheith Remix 2020





	happy little accidents [the youtube remix]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThirteenSocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenSocks/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Doodle Writings (Sheith)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857010) by [ThirteenSocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenSocks/pseuds/ThirteenSocks). 



> for sheith remix 2020. shout out to thirteensocks because there were so many ideas to choose from that i literally started like 3 fics before landing on this one ~~because it was less than 15k oh god please send help~~ so A+ work there. anyway bls enjoy this hot mess remix of veteran!shiro + youtuber!keith from _[doodle writings (sheith)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857010/chapters/39578899)_ but with bonus artist!keith.
> 
> might add to this later but for now its standalone so. /jazz hands

...and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

— Rainbow Rowell

* * *

Five months after the medical discharge comes through and nine months after he fights his way out from behind enemy lines, he wakes up from a nightmare.

Not the first one he’s had this week. If he’s counting, which he tries not to, it’s the fifth in three days. Mostly he tries to let them blend together. They’re fragmented things. Made up of unrelated shards and compounded into an explosive. Hell of a thing, to have spent all those years defusing IEDs only to become one himself.

Habit makes him take stock of his body. One of the first things they learned in basic was to know where they were at physically. Battle readiness came down to knowing if they could take the hit or make it to cover. So, abstractly, he registers:

the ache that comes from holding _fight or flight_ adrenaline in his muscles for too long, and the even but too loud _thud_ of his heart pressing against his eardrums the same way a chopper does at liftoff, and the pull of barely healed scars that make him into a patchwork version of who he used to be, and the sticky dampness of sweat in his hair & at the small of his back & in the tender crooks of his joints

None of it quite connects. Like this body, unwieldy and uncertain, isn’t really his. That won’t last long. Dissociation never does for him. Soon—sooner than he would like—it will all connect again and he’ll be claustrophobic in his own skin.

According to the alarm clock its almost o’two hundred. Too early to get up. Not early enough to justify using the sleeping pills they prescribed him last week. Scrubbing a hand through his sweat soaked hair, he runs through his options. Going for a run in the dark will probably cause a flashback. Reading calls for more focus than he’s got. And talking almost never works out the way all the pamphlets and therapists say it will even if someone else was awake for him to call at this hour.

It takes a minute of searching blind, but he manages to find his phone and shove it into the pocket of his sweats. Maybe he’s not ready to call. But maybe he will be in a few hours.

Shiro pushes himself up with his good arm. Its the only one attached, at the moment, because he still hasn’t figured out how to sleep with the prosthetic. Axca, his physical therapist, says he needs to learn. That he’s not doing himself any favors and he’ll never learn his new center of balance if he doesn’t keep the high end prosthetic on. Probably she’s right. Even now he lists to the side, trying to compensate for a metallic weight that isn’t there.

But he still leaves it off as he gets unsteadily out of bed and heads for the kitchen.

Making tea one handed is one of the first things he learned to do for himself. Right after dressing and washing his hair. There’s a muscle memory to it now. If he focuses on that, maybe the way his consciousness is rooting back into his body won’t overwhelm him.

While the water boils, he grabs his favorite mug off the drying rack. It’s one of the few things he bothers handwashing anymore. Supposedly he could put it in the dishwasher but he doesn’t want to risk it. Not with this. It’s the one mug that works perfectly, always balancing in his hand even when he’s shaky from pain or exhaustion or fear. The irregular pattern of glazes that didn’t quite layer right— _on purpose_ , the accompanying note said, _so it’s more organically tactile_ —are grounding beneath his fingers. Real in a way he needs. Habit makes him press his thumb against the small notches of a signature near the handle. **_K_ ** for Keith and **_S_ ** for Sekaquaptewa, though sometimes Shiro likes to imagine that the **_S_ ** is for himself.

Fuck, he wishes he could call Keith.

The thought knocks him right into his skin and he has to force himself not to flinch. Deliberately he clears his mind as he finishes steeping the tea, pours it into his mug, and heads for the balcony just off his living room. It takes some doing to get the door open with just his elbow. He manages.

Outside is warm. Summer is coming on, and the nights still hold the heat of the day. Hooking his foot around the leg of one chair, he pulls it closer before letting himself collapse into it. Despite the hour there’s still life. Cars driving, music playing softly from someone’s open window, a raccoon trying to break into the dumpsters down in the parking lot. There’s comfort in this. In the mundanity of it.

Shiro puts down the mug and pulls out his phone. It lights up. He doesn’t put in his passcode, not yet, just stares at the picture he set as his background three weeks ago in a moment of weakness.

In it, Keith’s smiling. A small thing, no teeth, but there are soft crinkles around his eyes that mean its sincere. One of his arms is curled around his wolfdog, who in the moment looks more like a slobbery puppy than a high content hybrid predator. Sunshine gilds them both. Behind them is an impression of blue sky and forest.

They’re a snapshot of a perfect spring day, one he wishes he’d been a part of even though he’s in no shape to be part of anyone’s life.

Ignoring the burn behind his eyes, he punches in the password and pulls up his emails on automatic. New messages fill his inbox. Mostly from people he doesn’t want to reply to. Shiro flags the emails from the Holts, because he owes it to them, and hesitates before flagging the one from Iverson too. Replying can come later. Toward the top is an email from Axca. Subject line **Hobbies for PT**.

Vaguely, he remembers her lecture at the end of his last session. Something about how he needed hobbies to improve his dexterity and fine motor control with his prosthetic, if not to improve his questionable mental health. Christ, she’s judgmental.

The email is just a short command to _choose something before our next session_ and a list of links to YouTube videos. Because there’s nothing better to do, and his next session in two days, he chooses a link at random.

As the video loads, he skims over the title ( **Making a Stained Glass Windchime for My Sister** ) and the name of the channel ( **attacktheartblock** ) and the complete lack of a description. It’s only got 1.3k views. The channel only has barely hit that many subscribers. Shiro wonders how the hell Axca found this until video automatically fills his phone screen.

The camera is set to capture everything below the shoulders, and it reveals a youngish man with the wiry build of a gymnast wearing a black tee that clings _just so_ to his pecs and biceps. Multicolored glass and various tools are strewn on the table in front of him. One piece of glass—a startling lapis lazuli that catches the sun and refracts it—catches between long fingers as the man toys with it absently. And then he speaks, voice roughly soft like velvet rubbed against the grain:

“Hey, again. Uh, so, today I’m going to be making a stained glass windchime for my friend.” Almost like an afterthought, he taps the glass in his hand against the scarred wooden table. “If you’re seeing this it’s probably be because she linked to it on her Instagram.” Even though his face isn’t visible, the eyeroll is engraved in his voice as he adds, “Thanks, Romelle.”

Putting down the shard of glass, he traces one fingertip through the gaps between the brightly colored fragments like he’s charting a path. “All the glass I’m working with today was found. That just means it used to be something else before it got to me.”

This time the glass he chooses is pink, and as he holds it up to the camera the curve of it becomes obvious. “Most glass you’d work with for a project like this is meant for that purpose. Comes in sheets, no curve, uniform color, and you can cut it to the size and shape you need. This...” With a wry laugh, the man rubs his thumb against the inner curve of the pink glass. “This isn’t that.” More sunlight catches on the glass. It glitters. “But it’s still beautiful.” Gently he places it back down on the table.

Shiro has never really cared for art.

Beauty didn’t come in pastorals hung in a museum that his ex dragged him to during his midtour. It came in the sleek spill of rain over the FOB and the heavy crash of waves against the stone beaches near Tacoma. It came in the arc of the Milky Way. It came in the weight of Matt, still alive and limping on his shattered leg, as they crossed the invisible line into safe territory. It came in the blunt press of a lead pencil to pages of lined notebook paper all signed _i’m still waiting for you, keith._

Only now, there’s this stranger talking about where he found each shard of glass. Like these broken fragments are worth something more than whatever use they had before. When he starts arranging the pieces, he shifts gears to his sister, who’s in New Zealand at the time of filming and called him last night because she forgot about timezones being a thing.

It goes quiet for a minute or so. Well, sort of. Somewhere in the background there’s the chirping of several birds. Whenever the man shifts to grab a new piece of glass for his arrangement, an open bay window appears over his shoulder before it’s blocked out again.

Under his diligent hands, a butterfly takes shape and that curved bit of glass forms the base of its flared wings. “When I solder this later,” he says, “It’ll allow the whole thing to be more sculptural. That’s not something you can do with store bought glass. Working this way takes more from you, but it’s worth it.” After placing the final piece, he crosses his arms on the table. “I think people are like that too.”

Shiro hits pause before the video can end. There’s a faint burning behind his eyes and in his ribcage that he barely recognizes. Fuck. What the _fuck_.

Dawn is still a long way off.

On a kind of autopilot, he shoves his phone back in his pocket and gets to his feet. Scooping up his mug of tea—only half drunk and long cold—he goes back inside. Dumps out the tea. Puts his mug in the sink for later. Heads back to his dark and sparsely furnished bedroom.

Part of him wants to collapse into the bed. Instead he sits on the edge, a little gingerly, and pulls out his phone again. Thumbs back to the video. It’s still there. Paused exactly where he left it, sunlight falling over a butterfly made up of glass fragments. Over the hands that made a beautiful thing out of broken things.

They’re good hands. Strong and gentle with scarred knuckles. They make him think of Keith. Everything makes him think of Keith. Of Keith:

writing to him in a warzone in place of his ex’s dear john letter, writing to him in a warzone, writing to him, lighting a candle in the window because of old army superstitions, holding on through months of radio silence while he was considered KIA, writing to him and writing to him and writing to him, signing _i’m still waiting for you_ like an i love you but better, sending him pottery and letters and pictures and so many things he doesn’t deserve to hold with his blood soaked hands

Fuck, _of Keith_ , who he always wants to call on nights like this but never does because he’s a monster made up of heartache and war and survival.

According to the alarm clock it’s o’three hundred. Next to the alarm clock is a stack of letters. They’re all from Keith. All the best things still in his life are. Shiro thumbs away from the video and finds himself staring at the contact for **Keith Sekaquaptewa**. There’s still a burning behind his eyes. It’s been months since he cried, or even wanted to. Licking his lips, he hits **Call**.

Keith answers on the third ring. “Shiro?”

“Hey.” It’s just one syllable but it comes out cracked. Like he can’t even manage that much. Clearing his throat, he focuses his gaze on the stack of letters before trying again. “Hey. I’m sorry for waking you up, but—”

“Don’t be.” Keith says it so quick and so firm that it cuts through whatever other apologies he might’ve offered up. “I’m happy you called.”

In spite of everything, Shiro grins. Maybe a little weakly. But it’s something. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” On the other end, there’s a faint _whuff_ that must come from the wolfdog and the sound of rustling sheets. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve been telling you to call me whenever since you got stateside or anything.” As he talks, he must open a window. There’s a squeak of old hinges, night peepers, and more rustling sheets. “Might as well take advantage of the fact that you’re one of three people I’ll answer the phone for.”

“Before dawn?”

“Ever.”

Falling back onto his bed, Shiro lets out a bark of a laugh and says, “Guess I’m lucky.”

“Guess you are.” There’s a pause. Like Keith’s debating something. “Do you… Do you wanna talk about it?”

Hell of a question. Saying _talking doesn’t usually help_ wouldn’t be a real answer even though it’s true. The carousel of bad coffee and folding chairs that is group therapy at the VA never works. None of the talking people make him do works. But this is Keith. “Do you know about stained glass?”

There’s a long pause. “Yeah.” Another pause. “Yeah, I do stained glass sometimes. Not as much as pottery but enough.”

Shiro blinks up at his ceiling. “I didn’t know that.”

“Haven’t really had time to tell you.” The wince is almost visible as Keith adds, “I picked it up while you were in Germany.” Checks out. Germany had been a month long haze of multiple surgeries as they tried to stabilize him. “So, stained glass?”

“My physical therapist, she wants me to pick up a hobby for the prosthetic.” Shiro’s gone running straight into the line of fire on a fool’s prayer that he’d make it within neck snapping distance before they got in a killing shot. Can’t bring an ounce of that bravado to talk about his feelings. That checks out, too. “Sent this video about stained glass. Making a butterfly for a windchime out of found glass.”

Now that he’s started, it feels like he can’t stop even to save himself. “And I’ve had one purpose for most of my life and I’m too broken to do it anymore. I’m all sharp edges and…” Shiro shifts, and his scars pull, and he’s reminded all over again that he’s not what he used to be. Who he used to be. Shiro as he is now doesn’t deserve Keith. No one really does. But especially not him. “I keep thinking about what he said. The artist. And how he reminded me of you.”

On the other end of the line, Keith sucks in a shaky breath that could be the prelude to a sob. It’s the kind of sound that Shiro’s only heard once before from him. In Kuwait, when he’d still been half delirious with pain and they let him call home.

“Keith?”

“I know what video you’re talking about.” Sheets rustle, and Keith swallows audibly before adding, “I know because it’s my video.”

“Oh,” Shiro says. More as a placeholder than anything. Closing his eyes, he thinks of slender hands and broad shoulders. Of a voice that’s got the perfect combination of rough and soft. Of the quiet assurance that broken things can be beautiful again. “Oh, _fuck._ ”

There’s another shaky inhale, and then a half giggle that sounds on its way to being tears. “Yeah. But I meant it, Shiro. It’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

Denial is on his lips, and it’d be so fucking easy. When he got stateside and got discharged he’d been in no shape to be anything good. All his broken pieces had been poised to break other people. So he’d gently turned down offers to meet, offers to help him get settled, offers to be anything more than this long distance friendship that could never be enough to fill the empty places in him.

“Keith…”

“No, listen to me! I’m broken too. You know I am.” Somewhere in the stack of letters on his bedside table is the one about the system. In terse sentences, it chronicles years of shuffling between foster families. The pencil punched straight through the paper in the line about how he’d only graduated on time because they finally gave up and stuck him in a group home. Matter of fact as he’d tried to make it sound, there’d been pain layed in with the lead. “Have you ever thought that maybe I’m the one who’s not worth it?”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Shiro snaps, rage pushing him upright. It feels a little like it did back in the war. Clears out all his own insecurities and fears. Leaves only the dark of the room and the need to fix this. “You’re worth everything, Keith.”

And he is. Keith is worth the months he’s spent putting in good faith efforts in physical therapy and psychological therapy. Keith is worth the trial and error prosthetics that made his nerves misfire until they got one that worked. Keith is worth the fumbling attempts to figure out how to be something other than a soldier. Keith is worth going to war for, and he’s more than worth coming back for.

“You still waiting for me?”

There’s a gasp, and a sniffle, and then a choked out, “I never took the candle out of the window.” Which means yes, he’s still waiting for Shiro. Waiting for Shiro to come _home_. 

Beauty comes in dozens of letters, all of them signed _i’m still waiting for you, keith_. Letters to a soldier and letters to a dead man. Mugs made to fit his hand after the war took his stability. Pictures of perfect spring days that he wanted to be part of. Letters, and letters, and letters. And maybe he’s made of shrapnel, but he’s ready to be something other than an IED.

**Author's Note:**

> big shoutout to zan for letting me cry at her about this a lot, and if you'd like to witness more crying from me check me out on the blue hellscape that is [tweeter](https://twitter.com/akaiikowrites).


End file.
